"In publishing we now talk about immersive narrative, mainly because we are tense about the future of books. People who love reading are in it for exactly that: to soak themselves in story. To forget whenever possible that there even is a story outside the book, particularly the bubble-busting story of how the book was made. As a reader, I cling to the sense that this all but transcendent experience comes directly to me from one individual imagination. The feeling I have when reading fiction—of a single mind feeding me experience and sensation—is seldom articulated but incredibly powerful. As a reader, I don’t want fiction to be a group project." But, as the article points out, the role of the editor(s) means it always is. A lovely article about books, publishing and fiction.

"Mutual misunderstanding was not a new topic in fiction — or even in children’s fiction — but surely few explored it with Mayne’s insight, humour, gentle delicacy or subtlety: how children are not party to adult agendas, compromises, habits and assumptions; and of course vice versa, that in growing up adults have very often lost or set aside a valuable way of seeing the world. That there’s a thread of trust that marks the path everyone is treading, and that this thread is sometimes very fragile indeed. Can sympathetic intelligence and wisdom — wisdom precisely about such trust — sit alongside deep selfishness and a capacity to abuse? Well, yes, sometimes I think it can." Complex, thoughtful piece about William Mayne and difficult questions.

An unexpected place for a Le Guin interview, but it's great nontheless.

Marvellous. Can't say any more - you need to read this (very) short story - but it's really, really lovely: shivers down the spine, and something heartwarming, all at once. And: set in a slightly magical part of the world.

"I keep reading books and seeing movies where nobody can fucking say anything except fuck, unless they say shit. I mean they don’t seem to have any adjective to describe fucking except fucking even when they’re fucking fucking. And shit is what they say when they’re fucked. When shit happens, they say shit, or oh shit, or oh shit we’re fucked. The imagination involved is staggering. I mean, literally." Ursula LeGuin on obscenity, swearing, and the way it's used on contemporary media. (LeGuin is someone who, for reference, has always used language precisely and carefully; she is not a prude, just bored of a lack of imagination.)

"The writing I enjoy doing most, every year, is marginalia: spontaneous bursts of pure, private response to whatever book happens to be in front of me. It’s the most intimate, complete, and honest form of criticism possible — not the big wide-angle aerial shot you get from an official review essay, but a moment-by-moment record of what a book actually feels like to the actively reading brain. Here are some snapshots, month by month, of my marginalia from 2010." Marvellous stuff from Anderson - funny, wry, hard to argue with. I am not good at marginalia, resorting to dog-earing the bottom of a page, and later, trying to remember why.

"Nelson, as described by IDEO in the video above, does so much work for you. It throws multiple perspectives into the equation, killing the unreliable narrator with the gifts of foresight and hindsight. It does away with the unexplainable appeal of a surprising hit novel giving you a league table of books to pick from according to their “impact on popular opinion and debate.” You’ll struggle to form your own opinion as you jump through the layers that Nelson offers you, given a perspective like a student browbeaten by an overbearing A-Level tutor." I similarly disliked their attempts to not only redesign the book, but to try to redesign narrative, in "Alice" - as if people hadn't tried, and as if what narrative _really_ needed was just a good design firm to take a crack at it.

Joe Moran on Daniel Miller's "The Comfort Of Things", which has gone straight onto my wishlist.

Russell on Joe Moran's new book, which I'm clearly going to have to read.

Well Played is now out, and can be read online and purchased from Lulu. It's exactly the sort of thing I've wanted for a while - a reader for videogames, and for the actual experiential side of them - and it's got some great authors contributing pieces on a host of games. Worth your time, for sure.

"The goal of this book is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at specific video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to clearly show how games are well played." Looks fantastic - great selection of writers, great selection of titles, and what the games canon needs. More Like This, please!

"Tattoos from books, poetry, music, and other sources." As with all tattoos: some are misspelt, some are a bit blah, some are beautiful.

"This is not a book about the VCS, nor breakout, nor video games and video game culture; it is a chronicle of the experience of that entity we might call “the player.” Oddly, there is little I can take from it in terms of approaches to video gaming or thoughts on the VCS Breakout. But it did enlarge my perspective and help me think about physiological, cognitive, and, let us say, monomaniacal aspects of video game play. Nervous, very dreadfully nervous Sudnow has been, but why would I say that he is mad?" Sudnow passed away very recently; I really ought to read his book, more than ever.

"Slowly, over time, a page typeset in 1771 might start to get a whole new life, thanks to the growing authority we grant it through that elemental gesture of making a link." And this is why we need to empower the socialised book, not just through Google Books, but through the physical things themselves.

"Wells has received insufficient credit as a writer of rhythmic, incantatory prose, long-breath paragraphs to cut against his tight journalistic reportage. The War of the Worlds makes the journey from sensationalist incident to moral parable. Wells predicts an era when fiction and documentary will be inseparable." Fantastic writing from Iain Sinclair on HG Wells.

"It's not quite a game, and while it does have branching, it doesn't allow the reader to affect the outcome of story - only their own experience of it." Adrian Hon on writing something better than Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. Some lovely visible thinking.

"It's one of the most awesome consumer products ever. It might even be a landmark moment in technology. ... and Amazon is promoting it as a $399 waffle maker." Andy Ihnatko on the Kindle

[Murukami] wrote the initial chapters in English, before translating them into Japanese. "I didn't know how to write fiction, so I tried writing in English because my vocabulary was limited. I knew too many words in Japanese. It was too heavy." Good inter